


hold what you’ve got

by cori_the_bloody



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: And then this happened, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Post-Season/Series 01, i was thinking about how bed sharing is my favorite trope to write, there is no plot it's just the band chatting n being silly. so.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-19
Updated: 2021-01-19
Packaged: 2021-03-17 07:29:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28845360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cori_the_bloody/pseuds/cori_the_bloody
Summary: “Oh, we were being good, see,” Reggies says. “Because we didn’t want to go into your room without permission, but—”“Our room is a little crowded right now and we were hoping you’d be in the mood to share.” Alex finishes, offering her a wheedling smile.“Right,” Julie says, shaking her head, “the studio renovations started today.”Reggie clasps his hands under his chin and pouts.“Alright, yeah.” She rolls her eyes and offers him a hand. “Come on in.”
Relationships: Alex Mercer & Julie Molina & Luke Patterson & Reggie Peters
Comments: 22
Kudos: 163





	hold what you’ve got

Julie has her earbuds in—deeply into her fantasy performance of a Rose & the Petal Pushers number—so that’s why the band is able to take her by surprise. Otherwise, it would have been really hard to miss three died-mid-growth-spurt boys huddled in the narrow landing outside her bedroom door.

As it is, she spots them at the last second, in the middle of a sloppy pirouette, and her eyes go wide right before her foot comes down on Alex’s hand.

He yelps, snatching it up and cradling it to his chest, and she would apologize, but she’s caught on his absurdly long leg and tipping forward and—

“Dammit!” she yells, trying to get purchase on the wall. But it’s too late. She knocks the framed photo of her fourth-grade dance recital off its hook and it drops onto Reggie’s head as she faceplants into Luke’s lap.

“Owie,” Reggie says.

“Um—” That’s as far as Julie gets before Carlos calls up the stairs.

“Did you seriously just wipe out _again_?”

“No,” Juile says, her voice wobbling a little as she pushes herself up. But, honestly, since the boys became corporeal to her, this has been happening kind of a lot.

Carlos’s laughter barges up the stairs. “You totally did!”

“Shut up!” she calls down at him, tucking herself up into an embarrassed ball.

“I think you gave me brain damage,” Reggie says, and she can hear the pout in his voice.

“No way, man,” Luke says. “Nothing there to damage.”

“Hurtful.”

“Are you okay?” Alex asks, probably the one to poke Julie’s knee.

She looks up then, relaxing from the fetal position. “Yeah. You?”

“I’ve got hearty drummer hands,” he says with a kind smile. “I’ll bounce back.”

“Way better than Reggie’s brain,” Luke says, reaching past her to snatch up her dislodged earbuds. Julie’s breath catches, feeling him speak on the back of her neck.

“I can’t help but notice that no one’s asked me if I’m okay,” Reggie replies haughtily.

Luke doesn’t miss a beat. “You good?”

“I feel like someone used my brain as a trampoline,” Reggie says. “But the fact that this picture exists does soften the blow.”

“Give me that,” Julie says, snatching the frame from his hands before Alex and Luke can lean in to see.

“You’re rocking that top hat,” Reggie says, snickering.

“I maybe had a thing for Gene Kelly when I was ten, okay? And if you ask questions, I’ll have to feed you my tap shoes.”

“Why?” Luke asks immediately. “What happened?”

“Feed you my shoes,” she says again, pushing up to her feet. “Metal plates and all.”

He holds his hands up in surrender.

“What are you guys even doing here?” she asks, settling the picture back on its hook.

“Oh, we were being good, see,” Reggies says. “Because we didn’t want to go into your room without permission, but—”

“Our room is a little crowded right now and we were hoping you’d be in the mood to share.” Alex finishes, offering her a wheedling smile.

“Right,” Julie says, shaking her head, “the studio renovations started today.”

Reggie clasps his hands under his chin and pouts.

“Alright, yeah.” She rolls her eyes and offers him a hand. “Come on in.”

“Sweet,” he says, taking it and letting her pull him to his feet.

Alex swats his legs before getting up, as well. “Told you if we waited she’d say yes.”

“This isn’t, like, a hang, though,” Julie says, stern as she pushes open her door. “I have homework.”

Alex salutes her as he slips past.

“Hey, we’re perfectly capable of entertaining ourselves,” Luke says, the last to hop up. 

She raises her eyebrows in silent doubt. It’s only Tuesday, and Luke’s already popped up at school unexpectedly three times this week, wanting to talk about set lists and sitting in on music classes.

He bites his lip and gives her a sheepish shrug, like he knows exactly what she’s thinking.

Reggie pushes between them before she can say anything, though. “Yeah, we’ll be good,” he says, making a beeline for Julie’s closet. “We swear.”

She watches with chagrin. “Just. Put whatever you try on back where you found it this time.”

Reggie doesn’t acknowledge her, and she’s about to insist he pinkie promise when Luke steps closer, stopping in the doorway and holding out her phone, wireless earbuds balanced on top.

“Oh,” she says as he passes it to her gingerly. “Thanks.”

He grins at her like they’re sharing a private joke. Julie’s stomach flip-flops.

“Is this what you’re reading in English?” Alex asks from inside her room, breaking the bubble of tension she finds herself getting gobbled up by every time Luke’s within two feet and staring directly at her.

“Um.” She hurriedly steps further in the room, pulling her door closed behind her, and looks at the book Alex is holding up. _Frankenstein_. “It is.”

Alex nods, his face going rigid with concentration as he flips through the first couple pages.

“Where did you get this?” Reggie asks, and Julie glances over at him. He’s holding up her leather skirt with the giant rose decal she hasn’t worn for a few years.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Mall, probably.”

“It would look cute with those leggings you have. The ones that look like stained glass windows.”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” Julie says, shaking her head and dropping her backpack on the floor by her desk.

“Yeah,” Alex says, flopping down onto her beanbag chair. “I’m gonna read this. That way I can quiz you, test your reading comprehension.”

“Sure,” Julie says, opening her laptop and trying to convince herself that there’s nothing more interesting in this room than the geometry problem set that’s due tomorrow.

Mere seconds later, she glances over at Luke, who’s taken up a spot on her couch. He looks up from the acoustic guitar she’s not at all surprised to find in his hands and waggles his eyebrows, delighted to have caught her staring.

“Do you think some poor plumber just watched that guitar phase out of existence?” she asks, partly as a distraction and partly because, well. None of them are any surer about how this ghost stuff works—if anything, it’s gotten more confusing with time—and she’s genuinely curious.

“Ooh,” Reggie says. “We should experiment. Quick! Go to the studio and I’ll stay here and wish for my bass!”

“This isn’t a hang, remember?” Luke says, and he’s looking at Reggie, but again. It feels like he’s telling a joke and it’s just for her.

She turns back to her laptop, grinning.

“Yeah, dude,” Alex says. “Pipe down.”

“Later then,” Reggie says, and she doesn’t need to turn around to know that he’s shooting finger guns in her direction.

Her smile widens.

###

It’s companionable enough, having the band there in her room—she’s even finding the symphony of clacking hangers, ruffled pages, and trickling chords helpful as she tries to focus on math. That is, until Luke starts playing in earnest.

When she shoots him a warning look, though, he presses his lips together tight, like he’s trying to keep from laughing. And a moment later, she realizes what he’s doing.

“Stop it,” she says. “You’re totally botching ‘Holly Hocks Her Love’.”

“Come over here and show me how it’s done, then.”

“I’m trying to do my homework,” she says, turning back to her computer.

“What’s happening?” Reggie asks, popping his head out of the closet.

“They’re doing that thing where they flirt in front of us and make it weird for everyone,” Alex says, turning to the next page a little aggressively.

“Ah,” Reggie says.

“What?” Julie says, her cheeks hot. “Luke’s not flirting with me.”

“Right,” Luke says, still playing. “I’m flirting with her taste in music.”

“Okay, but for you, that’s basically sexual intercourse,” Alex says. Then, a beat later, “Though evidently not enough like sexual intercourse, considering how you keep flirting with disaster.”

“Dude.” Luke says. And then stops.

She can’t look over at him, can’t risk knowing the expression on his face. It’s already too much that he doesn’t deny it.

“Someone’s gotta say it,” Alex says, his voice dropping low. Regretful.

Julie clears her throat. “Next person who speaks is getting exiled back to the studio.”

The room falls silent—for all of three minutes.

“What else ya got?” Reggie asks, diving from her closet onto her bed. “I’m bored.”

Julie points without looking away from her laptop. “Tablet. Nightstand.”

“Oh, sweet.”

Alex coughs meaningfully. “I think this is the part where you exile him.”

She looks over at him, jaw set.

“M-ma’am. Madam. Person whose bedroom this is.”

She raises her eyebrows.

“Miss Queen Overlord.”

She scoffs. “I feel like it should be easier to stay mad at you. Y’know, since you’re so full of crap.”

A beatific smile lights up his face.

“It’s annoying, right?” Luke asks, throwing a pillow across the room. It sails right through Alex.

“Why would you try that move?” He wants to know. “Ghost, remember?”

“It’s— I don’t know the rules!” Luke says. “Probably if I threw one of your drumsticks at you, you’d feel it, but you don’t know!”

Reggie perks up. “Oh, experiment time now?”

“I swear to god,” Julie says, jabbing the submit button on her assignment. “I’m never letting you guys hang in here on a school night again.”

Chastened, the room falls quiet for real.

###

The guys are still in her room when she gets back from dinner. 

“What’d you have?” Luke asks as soon as she’s through the door.

“Describe it in detail,” Reggie adds.

“Stop being weird,” Alex tells them, but Julie doesn’t miss the way his eyes cut expectantly to her.

_Boys_.

She’s about to point out that the studio’s probably free again for the night so they can poof on out of here, but the words get stuck to the roof of her mouth.

It’s weird. She wasn’t even gone that long, but already the giddy company they’d kept through the early afternoon feels months out of reach. She wants it back.

So, instead, she says, “Macaroni and cheese.”

“Oh, baby,” Reggie says, clapping a hand over his heart. “I miss mac ‘n’ cheese. But not the way my mom made it.”

“Oh, man,” Luke says, his eyes widening. “She put peas in it, right?”

“She sure did. And sometimes hot dogs.”

A collective shudder runs through the three of them. It’s not funny, not really. But it still makes Julie feel like smiling, just a little.

“I’d totally forgotten,” Luke says, a faraway look on his face. “But she made it for us so often. After-school hangs. Rehearsal. There was always mac ‘n’ cheese at the Peters house.”

“My dad liked tuna fish in his,” Alex says, and he’s looking down at the book in his lap, but Julie can tell he’s not reading.

“My mom used to make it with three different cheeses,” she says after a beat.

Reggie _ooh_ s. “Sounds fancy.”

Julie nods, floating over to her bed as if in a trace, crawling up onto it, and hugging her favorite throw pillow to her chest. She feels the guys’ eyes on her the whole time.

“What happened down there?” Alex asks once she’s settled.

“Yeah, you seem sad,” Luke says.

She sighs.

“Is Ray’s macaroni not as good?” Reggie asks, joining her on the bed.

“It’s not that,” she says, allowing him to tuck her under his arm. “Though, yeah. That too.”

“He’s a very inconsistent culinary talent,” Reggie tells Alex and Luke.

Alex rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Oh, sure.”

“Julie?”

She thinks if it was anyone but Luke saying her name like gently prodding at a bruise, she might have held it together. But it’s not. So she starts crying.

“What?” Luke asks. “Why?”

“N-nothing.” She sniffles. “It’s not even a big d-deal, I just—” She breaks off, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“Do you want a hug?” Alex asks her.

She nods. “Okay.”

“What am I, huh?” Reggie asks, shaking her a little.

“You can never have too much hug,” Alex says, barely standing from the bean bag chair in order to dive onto the bed. His head lands on Reggie’s thigh and he flings one arm around Julie, hugging her knees tighter against her chest. She thinks he must be doing the same to Reggie, because she feels him squeeze closer.

She manages a wobbly laugh. “What he said.”

“You heard the lady,” Alex says, kicking his foot out in Luke’s direction. “Get in here.”

Julie lifts her head from where it’d been buried in Reggie’s shoulder to find Luke staring at her, eyebrows raised in a silent question.

She jerks her chin up a fraction, beckoning.

With a trademark blindingly bright grin, he pushes off the couch and hops up onto her mattress, jostling them all.

“Seriously?” she asks him. Reggie’s chin knocks into the top of her head. “Shoes!”

“We’re all wearing shoes!”

“Yeah, but only one of us is standing on her pretty bedspread,” Alex says, letting go of Julie to swat at Luke’s ankles.

“Fine,” he says, and then he kicks them off.

“It is a crime against humanity that you don’t wear socks,” Alex says, and then he nuzzles his face into Reggie’s thigh, presumably so he doesn’t have to look at Luke’s bare feet anymore.

“Dude,” Luke says, stepping up to the headboard and dropping onto his knees. “We’re ghosts. Everything about us is a crime against humanity.”

“Anyone else feel like we’ve been getting too cavalier about the whole us being ghosts thing?” Alex asks.

Reggie giggles. “When you talk, it tickles.”

Julie shifts a little, sitting upright. “You can’t have it both ways,” she tells Alex.

Alex turns to look up at her, the question clear on his face.

“Shove reality in other people’s faces and try to ignore it for yourself,” she says, and she refrains from sticking her tongue out at him. But just barely.

His eyebrows scale his forehead, clearly impressed.

“You made Alex speechless,” Reggie says, also impressed.

Luke punches at her arm appreciatively. “Nice one.”

“Excuse me, I’m not the only one here who loves the sound of my own voice,” Alex says, recovering. “You guys could shut up every now and then, too.”

Julie nods. “That’s true.”

“Are you saying you think we talk too much?” Luke wants to know, his eyes wide and wounded.

“Hey!” Reggie protests.

“You all talk a lot,” she says. “But I never said it was too much.”

Luke slips sideways, then, shoulder hitting the headboard with a _thunk_. If he were to tip forward even an inch, his forehead would be resting against her shoulder.

“Except when you’re trying to do homework,” Alex says.

“Except when I’m trying to do homework,” she agrees.

In the beat of silence that follows, Luke tilts into her. “You never told us what’s wrong.”

“You don’t have to talk about it,” Alex is quick to add. “You know, if you don’t want to.”

She hadn’t even realized she’d stopped crying. And that’s the value of having the guys in her room, talking too loud about nothing in particular. There’s no space for sadness when their bickering fills every corner and crevice.

With a small smile, she says, “It really wasn’t anything.” A beat. Then, “We got this card in the mail. An advertisement for the new season at the Skylight Theater. My mom and I used to pick a couple shows to see each year, just the two of us.”

“I’ll go to the theater with you!”

They all twist around to stare at Reggie.

“What?” he asks. “You wouldn’t even have to buy me a ticket. It’d be so cost-effective.”

“It’s a nice thought,” Julie says. “But…”

“You’d make a terrible substitute mom,” Luke finishes for her.

Alex snorts.

“Yeah, well, so would you,” Reggie says petulantly.

“I’m not the one trying!”

“I don’t need any of you to try,” Julie says. “You’re my band. That’s all I need you to be.”

The guys start up a chorus of _aww_ s, all of them snuggling in closer to her. It makes her feel like she’s wandered into a mountain cavern made of muscle and nice-smelling deodorant. The outside world is unreachable here.

“But for the record, though, we’re _our_ band,” Luke says after a minute.

“Dude,” Alex says, “she can call us hers if she wants. She’s basically the reason we exist.”

“I guess that does kinda make her our overlord, huh?” Reggie says.

“I’m just saying!” Luke says, reaching around Julie to flick Reggie’s ear. “Sharing is nice.”

“I love you guys,” she says then, before Alex can volley anything back.

“We love you, too,” Luke says, the pout immediately gone from his voice.

The emotion that swells in her chest isn’t powerful enough to completely eclipse her grief. But like the guys’ endless chatter, it sinks into the cracks, filling her up in all the places it counts—chest and stomach and throat and fingertips.

###

She doesn’t mean to fall asleep but, well, muscle cavern is very comforting. That is, until Reggie rolls over and takes the chunk of her hair that’s caught on his jacket with him.

Julie sits up with a yelp of surprise—which is actually harder than it sounds considering Alex had migrated closer to use her stomach as a pillow and Luke’s head had been resting heavily on her chest.

“What time is it?” she asks as the boys shift around her, stirring.

“Is naptime over?” Reggie asks.

“No,” Alex says, reaching for Reggie’s face without lifting his from the mattress. “Hush.”

Shaking her head, Julie reaches over Luke for her alarm clock. It’s not completely dark, but the whole room is cast in a dreary grey that makes it hard to read the little black numbers clearly. Looking close, though, she can see that it’s quarter past eight.

She sets the clock back down and then, without making eye contact with any of them, removes Alex’s arm from around her waist and scoots down and off the bed.

“Everything okay?” Luke asks, his voice gravelly like it’s stuck in the moment before a yawn.

“Uh-huh,” she says, plucking some pajamas from out of her dresser. “Just using the bathroom.”

When she gets back—teeth brushed and hair pulled back and the clothes she’d worn to school shoved in her hamper—Reggie, Luke, and Alex are all still in her bed. They’re far more alert than when she left them, though.

“It felt weird to pop out without saying goodnight first,” Alex says, sitting up.

She hesitates at the foot of her bed.

“Unless, you want us to stay?” he says, clocking the expression on her face.

“We would totally do that,” Reggie says, shrugging like he’s totally cool to do her this favor.

She purses her lips around a smile. “I bet you would.”

“Whatever you need,” Luke says.

Her smile wavers. “Sometimes it’s hard,” she confesses. “Falling asleep.”

They all nod at her, and she heaves out a breath, relieved that she doesn’t have to say anything more than that. Luke simply pats the open spot on the bed between him and Reggie and Alex tugs his knees to his chest, trying to make himself smaller so there’s room for her to crawl back up, and so she does.

And once she’s squirmed her way under her comforter, Reggie curls into her, throwing his leg over her thighs, while Luke wraps his arm around her waist and buries his face into the curls piled atop her head. Alex goes back to using Reggie’s thigh as a pillow, grabbing onto one of her feet.

She feels a little suffocated, a little too warm.

It’s perfect.

Until…

“I can’t stop thinking about little Julie tap dancing,” Luke says, breaking several minutes of silence.

Julie groans.

“You really should have seen this coming,” Alex says, squeezing her foot.

“I hope you’re picturing a trainwreck,” she says, “because I was terrible at it.”

“But you’re not bad at anything,” Reggie says.

Julie giggles. “You’re literally the only person in the world who thinks that.”

“And he’s not even really in the world,” Alex says.

Julie wiggles her toes. “Alright, Mr. Cavalier.”

“That’s it?” Luke wants to know. “You acted like there was some big deal, and you just weren’t very good?”

She snorts. “I mean, there was a little more than that.”

The guys all wait silently, but she can practically hear their anticipation in the darkness.

Rolling her eyes, she says, “I fell off the stage at my recital. Still have the scar on my elbow.”

“Yikes,” Alex says.

“And you display the picture of that dark time right outside your bedroom?” Reggie asks. “Why?”

Julie hums, letting her eyes drift closed again. “Was an inside joke, kinda. Something my mom used to say.”

“Fall down, but get back up again.”

Julie smiles, turning her head toward Luke in acknowledgement. “Yeah. Exactly. The falling doesn’t matter so much as what you do after, you know?”

“So,” he says, his voice soft and quiet as he tilts his face down, lips brushing against her forehead. “You can trip over your ghost friends so long as you brush yourself off and invite them to hang in your room afterward.”

Julie snorts.

“Your mom sounds like she was very wise,” Reggie says, nuzzling into Julie’s chest.

“I’m going to bed now,” she tells them.

“Wait,” Reggie says. “Tell us a bedtime story.”

“Make it _Frankenstein_ ,” Alex says. “You know, as a helpful exercise.”

“Next person to talk is getting exiled from this bed,” Luke says, in that grumbly pre-yawn voice.

“What he said,” Julie says with an actual yawn.

There’s a moment of silence. Then Alex says, “I’m sorry, but I think this means we have to exile you from the bed now.”

She jabs him in the stomach with her foot.

“Revoked,” he says. “Miss Overlord, ma’am.”

The guys fall quiet for long enough that she nearly falls asleep.

“Julie?” Reggie whispers, just before she’s about to drift away.

She grunts.

“Do you think you’ll let us back in again tomorrow?”

She smiles, snuggling closer to Luke, pressing her face against his neck. “I mean, I’m considering it.”

“Would it help if I stopped talking?”

“Probably.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Julie.”

She laughs a breathy laugh, making Luke squirm. And that’s the last thing she remembers until morning.


End file.
